


The Night Walks With Us

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon, Drama, Horror, No Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-25
Updated: 2005-09-26
Packaged: 2018-12-27 11:20:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12080028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: You felt a peculiar tingling along the flesh of your arms when you saw him, and you knew, without quite understanding how, that something wasn't right.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Author's Notes: This is a departure for me, and I'll be interested to know what y'all think about it, so don't be shy with your comments. It is so large that I have broken it down into 7 parts and will post one part a day. Enjoy :D

~~~~~~~~~0000000~~~~~~~~~

He found you in the alley behind Babylon as you were locking up for the night. It was past 3 A.M., but now that he was living in New York, and you were the owner of a Pittsburgh business that typically didn't close its doors until well past two, your mutual curfew wasn't really practical, anymore. Even still, you'd never admit to him the guilt you felt when you couldn't meet it.

He startled you, stepping out of the shadows as if he'd been waiting there all night for you to appear. You felt a peculiar tingling along the flesh of your arms when you saw him, and you knew, without quite understanding how, that something wasn't right. 

You'd spoken to him just two days ago and he'd made a point of telling you how exhausting it was to have you call him in the middle of the night. He'd whined like the princess he was, begging you in a pouty voice to make it up to him by giving him hot phone sex, and then had fallen asleep shortly after coming, with threats to your privates if you dared call him at 4 A.M. two nights in a row. It was unlikely that he would just appear here, less than 48 hours later, after such a performance and with no advance warning. Unless something was terribly wrong.

His hair was longer than the last time you'd seen him and you blinked as if it was an illusion. He'd been home just two weeks ago, but this looked like several months' growth. He was dressed differently than he normally would have been, as well. He was almost completely encased in expensive black leather, and your dick responded even as your brain try to puzzle out where the money had come from for the new duds. You knew you certainly hadn't bought them for him. 

Despite the inky darkness, he wore black wrap-around sunglasses that looked starkly out of place against his pale flesh, but the incongruousness of them was nothing compared to the luminosity of his skin. Justin had always been wraith-like, it was one of the things that attracted you to him so powerfully, but his skin was so pallid tonight that it was almost translucent. You could swear that if you squinted your eyes, you'd see his blood pounding in the veins beneath the surface.

He glowed where he stood, causing you to glance briefly to the sky to see if somehow he was catching a reflection of the moon. It didn't even occur to you how ridiculous that thought was because all at once, _everything_ felt very surreal. 

And then he spoke.

"Another late night." 

He didn't ask, it was a bland statement of fact, and even if he had, you wouldn't have noticed, because all you really heard was that his voice wasn't the one you recognized. It was _his_ , that much was certain, but the timber was so far off that you wondered if the loud club music was finally affecting your hearing.

"Justin." You weren't sure why suddenly your own voice sounded so cautious. "Do you have a cold or something?"

"Or something," he sneered. "An infection is more like it."

The odd emphasis he'd given to the word 'infection' was just starting to creep into your nervous system, preparing to be processed by your brain, when he was on you. You didn't have time to think that he might be trying to kiss you, because his teeth were sharp and your felt the pinpricks when they sank in, and then you wondered if he would _kill_ you, but you were unconscious before the thought was complete.

****

*~O~*

You awoke in the dark, confused. You body ached and you knew without even opening your eyes that you were in a strange bed. You scrambled to recall who you'd gone home with, but couldn't produce with a face. One thing was certain: the fucking must have been spectacular- your muscles felt like lead. It wasn't so unusual, though, or even particularly disconcerting, that you couldn't remember _that_ , either.

You lay still, cursing your lack of control when it came to saying no to tricks who gave phenomenal head, or had killer asses, or whatever it was that this one must have possessed to lure you away from your plan to get back to the loft and collapse into sleep. 

The sound of ocean waves reached your ears and you shook your head in disgust. Your trick must be one of those guys who can't sleep without his precious noise machine. It was always frogs croaking, or waves lapping at the beach, or the freaking irritating sound of crickets chirping endlessly, with these guys. They'd have herbal tea in their kitchen cupboards and eco-friendly cars in their garages, and on weekends, they'd volunteer down at the GLC passing out condoms to needy queens, or some shit like that.

You groaned softly, stretching the kinks out of your sore muscles, and rolled to the edge of the bed. Sitting up and glancing around, you were stunned to find yourself in a luxuriously appointed room. Aged tapestries cushioned the hardwood floors that, even in this poor lighting, gleamed. Louis XVI pieces furnished the room, and while this wasn't anything like the clean, uncluttered lines of the mid-century Danish modern you favored, your discerning eye could see that these were most likely not reproductions. Your trick must have been hot _and_ rich, you thought, scrubbing your hands over your face.

Sluggishly, you began to realize that the sound of waves wasn't coming from some 30.00 piece of crap electronics sitting on a dresser somewhere, but was, in fact, floating in from several French doors. They took up two of the four bedroom walls, and had been flung wide open. Warm air accompanied the sound, filling the room with a light breeze that stirred gauzy curtains. You would've laughed at how stereotypically romantic the whole scene was, like something out of one of your more smarmy ad campaigns, but for the fact that you were pretty fucking certain there was no beach in Pittsburgh. And you had felt the tang of the cold when you'd come out of Babylon, tonight, not this balmy, tropical heat.

Coming out of Babylon. You had left Babylon late. You'd been shutting the heavy security door and locking it tightly when... What? Something had happened. Something. 

Frustrated, you clutched your head in your hands, trying to remember. There'd been a mediocre rim job you'd gotten in the back room, and a boring conversation with the professor that you'd mostly tuned out about some fucking book he was in love with this week, and then there'd been the shooters you and Emmett had thrown back while critiquing the dick size of most of the fags on the dance floor.

But what came next? You forced yourself to concentrate, sensing that this was something you needed to know, absolutely vital information. 

And then, in a sickening rush, it all came screaming back to you. Justin, outside the club, looking alien, ghostly, moving so quickly, like lightening, and... what? 

_Bitten._

You stood suddenly, a small scream wrenched from your throat, your heart thundering in something remarkably like terror. You clutched the edge of the bed as a stomach-dropping lurch of dizziness overwhelmed you.

Justin had been there and he'd fucking _bitten_ you. You could almost still feel his sharp little teeth breaking the skin even now, and you raised your hand, slapped it at your neck, searching for the wound you knew must be there. Not finding it, finding nothing but perfect, smooth skin, you stumbled out into the middle of the dimly lit the room. 

That was when you saw him.

He was standing on a balcony outside the open door just across from you. You realized that you hadn't noticed him before because somehow he seemed to be shifting in and out of the shadows as they flitted across the porch. Yet he was perfectly still, almost statuesque. And he was watching you. 

Even in the dark, you could see his eyes gleaming, and a stray thought _(what happened to the Miami Vice glasses, Justin?)_ skittered across your brain before disappearing again.

"Justin, what the fuck?" 

Your throat was dry, painfully so, as if you'd stayed up all night dancing, or dropping E, and had dehydrated yourself. You licked your lips, searching for moisture and, finding none, swiped the back of your hand across your mouth, instead. 

He didn't move, didn't speak. But he didn't stop staring at you, either. And you couldn't be certain, but it sure as fuck looked as if he wasn't even blinking. If he hadn't been so familiar, so very _Justin,_ even in his strangeness, you would have laid money that he was carved in stone, inanimate.

Except for those eyes. His eyes had always seemed to sparkle, but you knew that was usually just a trick of the light and the depth of his impossibly blue irises. This was different, though. His eyes were glittering, and even from the ten feet of near darkness that separated you, you could see flecks of azure, gray and gold flickering in them continuously. 

You couldn't tear your gaze from his.

"Where are we, Justin?" you croaked. You were faintly amazed at how his stony demeanor seemed to squeeze all the oxygen out of the room, despite the wide open windows and the breeze blowing through them. 

His posture never changed, nothing about him acknowledged your question, and for a moment, you were sure he'd refuse to answer, that he'd continue staring at you, _through_ you, as if he'd never known you.

But then he did answer, and you were certain that you'd wake up again, any minute now, that this was the product of a stupid mix of bad drugs, a nightmare that would break apart with the sound of your alarm clock beeping. Because that wasn't Justin's voice. It just fucking _wasn't_ , no matter how much it sounded like him.

"At the home of myâ€¦ benefactor." He said 'benefactor' the same way he'd called whatever was wrong with him an 'infection', as if there were layers and layers of meaning you weren't catching.

"Why?" You felt thick-headed, slow.

With a flicker, no more movement than it would have taken him to shrug his shoulder, he was standing in front of you, his body pressed almost flush with yours. Instinctively, yelping in surprise, you leapt back a step, or thought you had, because before you fully understood it, you were in his grasp and he was _strong_. He held you by the shoulders, his fingers digging deeply into your muscled arms, and though you'd spent a lifetime training yourself to show as little reaction as possible in unfamiliar and frightening situations, you couldn't keep the grimace of pain off your face.

"You're asking the wrong questions, Brian." His voice was like glass ground under a powerful boot heel. He shook you once, snapping your head back, and pushed his face into yours. "Pay some fucking attention!"

No breath. 

His mouth was so close to yours that you could have licked his lips without even bending to meet them, but you felt no breath coming from him. Stupidly, you looked down at his chest. It rose and fell in a convincing imitation of inhalation and expiration, but when you raised your eyes to his face again, you realized with a horror that made the flesh on your testicles crawl that he _wasn't breathing._

The hair stood up on your arms and at the back of your neck because now you knew. This wasn't your Justin. This creature, who studied you with such chilling impassivity, might not even be human.

****

*~O~*


	2. The Night Walks With Us

"I don't understand." Your voice wouldn't rise above a whisper. 

You felt as if ice had begun to encase you, chilling your heart, your mind. The cold radiated from his hands, from his weird, incandescent gaze, and from his quiet rage, spreading through your limbs like the inexorable approach of winter.

And then his eyes _changed_ , softened and became the clear blue that you knew, that you'd fallen into on the night you'd met him and then had become almost instantly incapable of crawling back out of. For the first time since he'd stopped you outside of Babylon tonight, his brow creased, breaking his expressionless scrutiny, finally showing emotion. 

It looked like grief. 

His fingers loosened on your arms, allowing the blood he'd been cutting off to flow back into your grateful fingers with a painful tingle. He leaned even closer, tilting his chin up to you, as he'd done so many millions of times before and, understanding intuitively what he wanted and ignoring the terror buffeting you, you met his mouth in a soft kiss. 

His lips were cold, and you shuddered to think why, but when he pressed them tighter to your own, it _felt_ so much like Justin that your cock twitched with the involuntary reflex he'd invariably managed to provoke in you night after night, year after year. Kissing him had always been so natural and normal, and right now you craved normal more than you ever thought you would, so you leaned more aggressively into his mouth, flicking his lips with the tip of your tongue, needing to feel his response. 

When it came, a soft sigh that you heard but never felt, you relaxed marginally, raising your hand to his cheek. The flesh there was as chilled as his lips, but just below the surface you could feel heat, an inferno raging under his skin, and somehow the dual sensation made you hard, made you want him despite the sick twisting in your gut. You cupped his face, begging him with your tongue to let you in, to accept your kiss. 

The whimper your advance produced in him was so heartbreakingly Justin and for a moment, you allowed yourself a fantasy that this was some bizarre game you simply hadn't learned the rules to, yet, and that at some point, he'd laugh, step back, remove the Halloween mask his face had become, and tell you that that joke was on you. His tongue was as hungry for you as it had ever been, his hands, with that same curious hot and cold combination, were still just as soft and loving.

You let yourself feel hope, for just a brief moment, and wasn't _that_ a stupid thing to do, because the moment his sharp teeth punctured your tongue, you knew you were so completely fucked. As you tasted your own blood, you understood that nothing would ever be the same again, and that Justin, the man you'd finally come to terms with loving, was inexorably different, now. The Justin you knew was lost, and your grief nearly crushed you.

As he tasted your blood, you sensed the strength and terrifying determination flood back into him. His hold on you tightened again, and his familiar whimpers became hard, ugly grunts. You struggled to break the kiss, but he was inhumanly strong and your efforts were insignificant against his iron grip. You believed that you would die, then, that whatever game this creature was playing with you had finally come to its end and he would crush you in his fist like a dried and desiccated leaf.

You tried to say Justin's name, calling for him in what you thought were your last moments, but the sound was muffled and weak even to your own ears. You'd never been so afraid in your life. In your extremity to stay alive, you began to fight him in earnest, using your fists to pummel and batter him, but he barely seemed to notice. He wrapped his arms around you and squeezed you so tightly that the air was pushed from your lungs. 

Suddenly, his mouth left yours and you struggled through the blood pooling on your tongue to suck in oxygen. You didn't even realize that tears of pain and fear were streaming down your face, but this, also, he chose to ignore. Something else had caught his keen attention.

He tilted his head, his eyes having gone distant, and paused, not moving a muscle. He seemed to be listening for or to something, but all you heard was the hammering of your own heart and the faint lapping of the waves, outside. He stood motionless for ten seconds, thirty, forty-five, as if he had forgotten you were even there, all of his attention bent on something beyond your awareness.

Unexpectedly, his arms dropped from around your body and you stumbled backwards, your legs threatening to fold and dump you to the floor.

"The sun is coming," he whispered to himself and then swung the hellish light of his eyes back to rest on yours. And for the second time that night, they changed, became the eyes of the boy who had once looked to you for all his answers, all his love, all his security. Your heart crumbled into dust.

"Brian," his vice was so soft, so pleading, and tears welled up in his eyes. "I have to... gotta do this... please don't..."

He shook his head uncertainly, seeming to beg for your forgiveness, and then his hand was on the back of your neck, his movement so swift that your eyes couldnï¿½t catch it. He drew you to him again, almost gently this time, and you watched in astonishment as he raised his other hand to his mouth. In a flash of white teeth that you never quiet saw clearly, he nipped at his index finger, and as the blood welled in beads to the surface, pushed it into your mouth. You gagged on the salty taste and tried to spit the blood out, understanding instinctively that to swallow it would be poison, but he was stronger than you and you felt the coppery thickness of it slide down your throat. Your stomach heaved in response, revulsion overtaking you. You wanted to bend over and vomit, but his hand held you upright, watched your face intently. 

Another debilitating wave of dizziness swept over you, and as your consciousness dwindled to a pinpoint, the last thing you heard before you collapsed was his voice.

"Sleep, now."

****

*~O~*

The sounds of traffic on the street came to you first, distant, comforting, expected, and you rolled over towards Justin's side of the bed, just as you did every morning. You knew that eventually you'd get used to sleeping alone again, but it hadn't happened yet, so you pulled his pillow to your chest and inhaled the scent of freshly laundered cotton.

Your morning hard-ons were never satisfied in the way you liked anymore, with a long, slow blow job in the shower, Justin's hair clenched in your fingers, but occasionally, when you were feeling particularly horny, you'd call and wake his lazy ass up. The great artiste still slept until the crack of noon, stating that he could paint at any time of the day or night so why do it at 6 in the fucking morning, but despite his usual grumbling, he never really seemed to mind the dirty things you whispered into his ear as you both stroked yourselves to matching orgasms.

Smiling to yourself, you rolled towards your nightstand and scooped up the cell phone laying there. You'd kept your promise not to call him after the club closed, but you'd be damned if you didn't call him after the sun had already risen.

_'The sun is coming.'_

Panic snapped through you like a breaking rubber band, and you bolted up in bed, shoving the covers off and staring wildly around the loft. Everything looked normal. The sun slanted in from the east, the new 600 dollar wall clock ticked quietly from the dining room, and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air, the product of a top-of-the-line, auto-timed latte machine.

Frantic, your hands shaking so hard you nearly couldn't dial, you punched up Justin's number and held the phone with numb fingers.

"Pick up, Justin," you muttered to yourself, "pick up, pick up, pick up."

One agonizing ring after another sounded in your ear until finally, in the middle of the 6th ring, his voice mail connected.

"This is Justin Taylor," his recorded voice informed you, and you ached at the happy innocence that radiated from it, "you know what to do."

You waited for the beep, your heart thundering in your ears, and when it came, you barked into the phone.

"Justin, where the fuck are you, it's 6 in the fucking morning. If this is a goddamned joke, I'm gonna kill you, you little shit!"

You snapped the phone shut and thought seriously of slamming it into the closest wall, but changed your mind, flipping it open again. You dialed his number once more, praying to a god who'd never been real to you that he'd answer, his voice sleepy, warm, loving. 

"This is Justin Taylor, you know what to do."

" _FUCK!_ " You screamed to the ceiling. If you'd had the strength, you would have crushed the offending phone in your fist and let the dust sift to the floor. Instead, you threw it in frustration into the tangle of blankets and sheets at your feet.

You covered your face with your hands, and, reverting to a childhood coping technique, rocked slightly back and forth, trying to clear your head. 

It had to have been a dream. A fucked up nightmare brought on by stress and too many late nights working. Justin, a vampire? God, you'd laugh so much at this once he picked up his voice mail and called you back. You'd both laugh, and you'd drink in the sound of his amusement like the parched earth drinks rain, and your heart would return to a normal beat, and life would be fine, again.

'A dream. A dream. Just a dream,' you told yourself. 'Justin, why don't you call? Just a bad dream. A stupid, horrible dream and _christ_ , Justin, call me the fuck back.'

Your stuttered breathing was finally beginning to return to normal when a sharp beeping made you suck in a lungful of air and hold it, your hopes rising. You pawed through the sheets, frantically searching for the phone, cursing and laughing at the same time. Finding it, finally, you opened it and pressed it to your ear. 

That's when you realized that the sound wasn't Justin calling you. It was just your alarm clock going off.

Screaming in rage, you slammed it off the nightstand and into the wall with a vicious backhand, watching with wicked glee as it shattered into small pieces of jagged plastic.

****

*~O~*

By the time you reached your office, you had nearly convinced yourself that the previous night _had_ been a dream. You had stood for long minutes gazing into your bathroom mirror, water streaming coldly down your back after a shower that didn't leave you feeling clean, searching for evidence of Justin's bites. You had rubbed the flesh of your neck repeatedly, as if you could somehow massage the wound you thought should be there to the surface. You'd examined your tongue, remembering the sharp ache as he'd punctured it, creating an oozing gash on each side.

Nothing. Just clean, unbroken skin.

You had called him again before leaving the loft, and once more in the car on the way to work, his chipper voice mail message irritating your skin like a rash.

Arriving at your desk, you bellowed orders at the nearest assistant to keep trying Justin's number every thirty minutes, and dove into the mounds of paperwork spread across the surface in neat stacks. By noon, you were halfway through the newest Nike presentation and into the home stretch. 

Your discordant thoughts kept returning to the strangeness of last night. The warm, humid breeze drifting in from outside, the way his eyes had shone, the grip of his fingers that should have left bruises but didn't. None of it made sense, and that's what nagged at your logic, insisting again and again that you'd been awake, that he'd been there, that the fear and danger and longing had been real. 

Not possible. He had just lost track of the time, that's all, stuck his dick into some hot trick and then fallen asleep in his bed. He'd be hiking back to his shithole studio apartment soon, and that's when he'd remember his phone was turned off. He'd find the numerous voice mails left by you and your staff and roll his eyes in the dramatic fashion that was so typical of him. You could actually see him, walking down the busy New York City streets, listening to message after message, his free hand clapped over his other ear to block out the nose of honking horns and the press of humanity. He'd call you back, embarrassing you with admonitions that he wasn't a child anymore, that he didn't need your protection. And his voice would be recognizable, smug, affectionate, _him._

You held onto that hope.

Your body seemed to want in on the action, too, and throughout the day you were wracked with hard chills and a thumping headache. You felt feverish and nauseated. The flu on top of everything was something just did not need, so you willed your symptoms away as if they were figments of your imagination. Finally, bolting into your washroom to lose several pots of coffee into the toilet, you let yourself think about the viscous, warm blood you'd swallowed last night, and the careful construct that allowed you to believe you'd been dreaming once more began to fray.

When Cynthia quietly stepped up behind you and placed a palm on your shoulder, surprising you, you nearly shrieked in loathing and terror. You were shivering in every muscle, your stomach cramping viciously, cold beads of sweat forming on your upper lip and forehead. Even chemo, and the fear of cancer, paled to this debilitating condition. 

"Brian, Jesus," she murmured, "you look like death. I'm calling you a cab. Go home and go to bed."

You nodded in her direction, your fear for Justin and yourself, and your rapidly deteriorating physical condition, playing a rousing game of foosball with your nerves.

She turned to leave but you placed one shuddering hand on her arm to stop her.

"Any word from him, yet?" You already knew the answer, but you were certain that you'd never be able to leave the office without hearing her say it.

"I'm sorry, Brian, but we'll keep trying. You want me to tell him you're sick when he calls back?"

You shook your head sharply. He wouldn't be calling back, your bones were telling you so, despite your need to believe otherwise, but Cynthia misinterpreted you.

"He's your partner, Brian, you should tell him these things," she gently chided. You shook your head once more and she gazed at you another moment before dropping her voice and stepping in closer.

"Brian," she hesitated, "is there something I should know? You're pale and sick. You've been agitated all day, and you're desperate to get in touch with Justin. Is itï¿½ have you seen your oncologist recently?"

You choked out a laugh that made your stomach lurch, prompting you to grip the edge of the sink with white fingers.

"It's not cancer, Cynthia," you assured her, but she didn't look convinced. "Just call me a cab, ok?"

She stood undecided for a moment more and then nodded, squeezing your arm comfortingly before leaving. 

You turned and ran cold water into the basin, splashing your fevered face and neck, but your eyes were drawn relentlessly to the perfect, tender patch of skin just below your jawline.


	3. The Night Walks With Us

You bundled Ted, who had followed behind the cab with your car, into the taxi you'd just exited, and sent him back to Kinnetik with strict orders to take no shit in your absence. Once inside the loft, you went straight to your answering machine, paging though the various unimportant messages from Mikey and Linds, praying to hear his voice.

Nothing. 

You dropped your briefcase next to the bar, yanking at your tie, and thought about a stiff drink, but the sloshing in your stomach and your shaky gait decided you, instead, on stretching out on the bed.

It was just for a while, you promised yourself, you were really just resting until Justin called so you could chew him out for being inconsiderate enough to have an actual life while you were stuck here, worrying about him. You intended to play the flu card big time, too, eliciting every ounce of his sympathy you could. It was probably worth at least one good, hard orgasm while his breathy voice pushed you deeper and deeper into fantasies of the taste of his lips and the tightness of his young ass.

Fighting your body and losing, you fell into restless sleep. Your dreams, when they came, were confused, vaguely threatening and filled with incomprehensible images. You saw Justin walking home alone at night, helplessly watched him turn and cock his head, as if he heard something. You felt the danger gathering near him, but you were a bystander, unable to scream, to move towards him, take him out of harms way. The hand, reaching out from somewhere behind him and landing on his shoulder, glowed as his flesh had outside of Babylon, white and cold. 

You saw him startle, turn quickly, ready to defend himself if needed, but then just as suddenly, he appeared to relax, as if the person behind him was a friend, someone he trusted. You saw his eyes become hazy, a vacant smile taking over his beautiful lips. You shouted silently, warning him, as the dark figure swept in upon him, and then he was lost from your view.

In the large bed you shared with him, you groaned in your sleep, burning with fever.

He was locked away, now, in your dream, locked inside something that looked frighteningly like a jail cell. He pounded his fists on the wall, his mouth opened in a scream you couldn't hear. The sound of rushing air reached your ears, instead, and then he was engulfed in a black swirling cloud.

You cried out, tossing fitfully on top of the comforter, and when your fever broke with an almost audible snap, drenching you in sweat, you awoke trembling from the cool air of the loft. 

"Justin."

You curled your knees in to your chest, holding yourself, your clothes clinging soddenly to you, and mourned.

In the pocket of your suit jacket, your phone lay inert. It never rang.

****

*~O~*

By morning, you were feeling marginally better, although the constriction in your heart that told you Justin was irretrievably lost to you never lessened, and in fact, grew inside you faster and more invasively than any cancer would ever manage to.

You moved around the loft slowly for most of the day on shaky limbs, aimless, with a frantic dread that only hearing his voice would have a chance of abating. Working was out of the question. You'd find yourself sitting at your desk, staring at the blankness of your laptop screen saver, having no idea how long you'd been drifting. Each time the phone rang, twice with Cynthia calling, once with Mikey, and once to solicit a new cable service, your heart squeezed in hope and then felt trampled and ill-used when none of them turned out to be Justin. 

You dialed his number repeatedly, but by the time the fever in you spiked again, sometime after nightfall, you were certain that you were simply going though the motions. There would be no answer. Or rather, there was an answer you couldn't cope with, one wrought of nightmare scenarios that put baseball bats and stealthily planted bombs to shame. 

You dozed on the couch, shivering under a light throw, your throat parched with dehydration while blinding flashes of light flickered behind your eyelids. When you felt him gently pull the coverlet up over your shoulders, you reached, in a haze of sleep and fever, to clasp his hand, relief flooding you only momentarily before you felt the cold fire burning in his flesh. 

"Justin," you whispered, your tongue feeling like sandpaper in your mouth. You pried your eyes open, your vision blurred, and saw his face close to yours as he crouched next to the couch, peering at you.

You were hypnotized by the swirling colors in his eyes and for the first time since this nightmare began, you were too sick at heart to feel anything but dull relief. He was _here,_ and he was looking at you with care and concern etched in his features, and nothing else mattered.

"I'm sorry, Brian," he spoke quietly, almost in your ear, that same odd quality to his voice. "I didn't know it would be this bad. I got the full dose, so this didn't happen to me. I'll stay with you as long as I can."

You had no idea what he was talking about, but you found that you didn't care. You floated along, cocooned by your fever and the raspy scrape of his touch across your flushed forehead. Handling you like you were made of precious crystal, he gathered you into his arms and lifted you, despite being so much smaller than you. He carried you to the bed, showing no strain at all in his muscles, as if you weighed less than air, and stretched you out on the sheets. He deliberately stripped you of your clothes, covered you warmly with the blankets, and brought you water to sip. 

You'd have been surprised by his tenderness, so different from his behavior the night before, if your gratitude at seeing him hadn't outweighed all else.

"I tried to call," you mumbled. "You didn't answer."

"I know," he cooed, "try to sleep."

And you did.

When your fever broke for the second time, bringing you out of sleep with a shout, he was there. The loft was dark, but his eyes were like lanterns, shining at you, and you thought for a moment of being afraid of him again.

"There's no need to be frightened," he spoke through the dimness between you, making you wonder if he was reading your mind.

"I am," he answered softly. "You're safe, Brian, I know how to handle it better, now. I won't hurt you."

"Justin, what the fuck is going on?" Your throat was scratchy, raw, and before you could ask, there was a cool glass of water being pressed into your hand. He helped you sit up and waited patiently while you sipped.

"You saw what happened? In your dream?"

You shook your head, not understanding.

"He found me three nights ago. I was walking home from the Y. It was usually empty that time of night, and the hour alone gave me a good chance to exercise and think about whatever I was working on at the time." 

"Who, Justin?" Somehow, it seemed important to know. "Who found you?"

"He never told me his name." Justin's laugh was harsh. "I don't think it works like that."

He rolled onto his back and you waited, hoping that there was enough of the young man you knew left in him to keep him talking. Talking soothed you, calmed the ache in your heart and kept your fear at bay, despite the gravelly tone of his voice.

His eyes found yours again in the dark and he nodded, though he barely seemed to move. 

"He's here, Brian." He was reading your mind again and you found it less disturbing than you would have imagined. You realized suddenly that he'd always had a knack for it, right from the start when you'd first met him. He'd always known just what you needed, even when you denied it, and him. He'd been able to sense and understand your moods better than anyone else who knew you. He knew when to be near you and when to walk away, and though you had often squawked and blustered at him about needing your space apart from him, he knew unerringly when you were telling the truth and when you were lying, even to yourself.

"He's here, in me," he went on, quietly, "the Justin you've always known. He's right here. But there's something else now, too. Something _He_ gave me that night. Something from his blood. It's dark and cold and there are moments when I wonder if I've gone insane, moments when I _am_ insane."

He rolled towards you, his hard, lean body appearing to simply rotate with no effort on his part, the movement so quick that, like all his movements, you had trouble tracking it with your eyes.

"And Brian," he confided, "I'm so afraid all the time, now. I'm so lonely."

Your heart twisted. You weren't sure how much grief one man could hold, but you had a pretty clear idea that you'd be finding out soon. Shaky, hesitant for possibly the first time in your life when it came to touching another man, you reached your hand out, brought it to his cheek. You didn't know how to show sympathy for the creature he had become, but you knew that tone of voice, the uncertain cast to the eyes, the base honesty in his words. That was Justin, and he was in pain, and you had never been able to abide that. He turned his face into your palm, accepting the comfort you tried to give.

"How did it happen? _What_ happened?" you pleaded. "Make me understand."

"Brian," his laugh was soft, in a lower register than used to belong to him, as if his transformation had somehow aged him, deepening his voice. You were feverish, foggy, but you thought you could get used to the sound in time. "I'm not sure _I_ understand. One night I was on my way home, thinking about how much I missed you, and then next I was this thing that you see now. "

You shook your head, needing more but unsure which questions would solicit the information you wanted.

"Do you want the details?" His voice turned hard, the colors in his eyes gathering momentum, reminding you of science videos you'd been shown in college chemistry of atoms colliding. "Do you want to hear all of it? Can you handle it, Brian?" 

You dropped your hand from his face, wary of his change in demeanor. Suddenly, you _weren't_ sure you could hear it, deal with it. Someone had taken Justin from you. Did you really want the blow-by-blow? But you knew that if you were ever to fully take in what had happened, you had to know.

It had been the same when he was comatose, after the bashing. Every word out of the doctor's and nurse's mouths had horrified you, but you had to listen, had to know, forced them to repeat themselves until you could rattle off his condition in the same detached, clinical tone they used to describe him to you.

You swallowed hard and nodded.

"Tell me."

Suddenly, he was off the bed and pacing the floor. You weren't sure you'd ever get used to his newfound agility and quickness, but you remained silent, bracing yourself.

"It was just like in the old black and white movies, Brian. He drank my blood."

A part of you must have known that that's what happened, but you blanched, anyway.

"He came up behind me, and then... I'm not sure I can explain it... I felt like I was in a trance. I wasn't afraid of him, although a part of me still knew I was in danger."

You could sympathize with _that._ It was a state you were rapidly becoming familiar with, yourself.

"He bit me, just like you see in the fucking movies, just like I bit-" He stopped pacing for a moment, brought to a halt by the guilt that washed plainly across his face. His voice dropped. "Just like I bit _you_."

You nodded again, trying to mask the revulsion in your gut, wanting only that he go on, get it over with, tell you everything. You knew he was reading you, but he refrained from comment this time, only nodding back to you in understanding.

"He drained my blood in a matter of seconds. I'd never seen anyone move so quickly or so quietly, Brian. Now, of course," he said mysteriously, "I know it's all just smoke and mirrors to keep the humans from catching on."

He almost seemed to be speaking to himself, his words baffling you, but you let him continue.

"When I was at the point of death, he... " He looked up at you and paused for long seconds.

"What, Justin?"

"He fed me." His eyes took on a new look, a faraway look of hunger remembered, and danger.

"How?" You could only ask in a whisper.

"He opened a vein in his wrist," he said causally, dully, "And made me drink from it."

You'd known. Of course you'd known. Wasn't it part of the mythology? Still, your stomach heaved and you struggled to get free of the covers. You bolted past him, barely noting the velvet steel his body had become as you brushed his side, and made it to the toilet before it was too late. There was nothing much left on your stomach to vomit, though, and all that came up was acidic bile that you choked on.

You felt his hand on your back, rubbing soothing circles into your aching muscles, and you boldly shoved away from it, risking his wrath. You couldn't be touched by him right now and you didn't know if it was because of your deep revulsion at what had been done to him or your own humiliation at how easily he'd been able to do the same thing to you.

Covering your confusion with anger and sarcasm, you glared up at him.

"He infected you, so you infected me?"

The sorrow you saw on his face was genuine, but you refused to acknowledge it. To do so would be to let in all the misery you felt for him, the panic residing just below the surface, the outrage at what had been done to him. To _him,_ of all people. This man who was so full of light and promise and vibrancy. 

You felt your stomach roll again and you closed your eyes, collapsing against the cool tile wall of the bathroom.

_Not Justin,_ you mourned, _Please, not Justin._

You felt rather than heard him crouch in front of you. His cool hand palmed your cheek and you wondered how many more minutes you would allow him to comfort you when the injustice had been done to _him._ You weren't accustomed to such weakness and you hated yourself for succumbing. 

"You're grieving, Brian," he intoned, "it's natural, don't deny yourself the right."

You shifted on the tiles, sitting upright.

"Ok, Justin," you tried to make your voice stern, despite the effort it was starting to take just to stay awake. "This mind reading shit is really going to start annoying me soon, what say you cut it the fuck out?"

He laughed out loud, the first time you'd heard him do that since you'd spoken with him on the phone, three nights ago. The sound was like a balm to your wracked body, soothing you. You smiled wanly at him.

"I wish I could," he grinned, and for the first time, you got a clear look at the difference in his mouth. His teeth had always been the purest white, straight and perfect, earning him his nickname because of the smile that split his face with such ease and frequency. But now that perfection was marred. His incisors had become the expected sharp fangs of clichï¿½d Hollywood. It was only the smile in his eyes and voice that kept you from recoiling at the sight.

Somehow, though, they made him even more beautiful.

"I don't seem to be able to control that mind reading trick," he went on, and stood gracefully. He reached out a hand to you, understanding instinctively that to pick you up again and carry you back to bed would be unmanning to you. You clasped his coldly burning hand and he gently hauled you to your feet, slipping an arm around your waist to steady you as he led you into the bedroom.

"I'd like to learn how, and I guess I will, one day, but it's not exactly as if I have a teacher in any of this."

"What about your... benefactor?"

"Yeah," he eased you down onto the bed and waited until you had situated yourself before pulling the covers over you again, " _that_ asshole abandoned me early last night."

You weren't sure how, in the middle of all of this, it was that stark fact that shocked you the most, but you were suddenly horrified for him, and your rage bubbled to the surface again.

"Abandoned you? He fucking abandoned you?" You don't know why you expected decorum or parental instincts from a vampire, but you knew that abandoning someone like Justin must have taken a ruthlessness that was beyond your comprehension.

"Yeah." He fussed like a mother hen, straightening your blankets, handing you the glass to sip from again, placing a pillow behind your back. It was so like him; always the caretaker. "He said that's why he made me, because he couldn't deal with eternity anymore but to not pass on the 'gift" was some kind of crime among his people. Whatever." He paused and rolled his eyes, and the familiarity of the behavior combined with the weirdness of his eyes gave you that prickly feeling along your arms and back, again.

"I guess he was one of the first," he went on conversationally, as if he was describing a new shirt he'd just bought, "he was incredibly ancient. He didn't even need to tell me that, I could feel it coming off him in waves, you know?"

You shook your head dumbly. How could you know what he was able to sense now?

"He didn't give me much information before he left," he sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at you through the light shining in from the bathroom. "Only what to avoid, what I might be able to do, what I should never do. And that I'm..."

"What?" You were terrified to know. He was rattling all this off as if it was nothing, a shopping list that would get stuck to the front of the fridge.

"Well, you know," he watched you for a reaction, "immortal. Sort of."

Your eyes widened.

"Sort of? How can you be sort of immortal? Isn't that like being a little pregnant?"

He laughed again and shuddered theatrically.

"Thank god I'm not _that,_ " he cried. He was so much like himself that you found yourself grinning at him, sharing the joke.

"Anyway," suddenly he was stretched out next to you, leaning up on one elbow, studying you. "He left me his house and a fuckload of money, so I don't have to worry about how to survive. So I guess it's not all bad."

How Justin of him, to find something good in the midst of this nightmare. Your disbelief showed, but even if it hadn't, you know now that he would have read it in you as easily as picking up a book and opening the front cover.

"But he also warned me..." He stopped then, dropped his glowing eyes, and picked at lint you couldn't see on the coverlet.

"About what?" Anxiety, your new, ever-present friend, was back stronger than ever.

He seemed to consider your question for a long while, barely moving, and in that time, you got to examine him more closely.

His skin was alabaster, polished almost to a high sheen. Your first impression of him had been right- his hair was much longer and looked softer, too, although you didn't risk touching it. The rosy pink had faded from his lips and you found yourself grieving the loss. He had become all hard angles and smooth surfaces and you were reminded of sculptures you'd seen in his many art magazines. Justin had always been round, soft, pliant, but those qualities had been burned out of him by his transformation.

"It doesn't matter," he said abruptly, "it doesn't concern you."

He rose and moved to the end of the bed, his posture taking on that odd listening quality you'd seen in him that first night. He was tuning in on something you couldn't sense, and the last time he'd done that, he'd forced some of his blood down your throat. You wondered if now might not be a good time for your survival instinct to kick in, but either his presence here after you'd been so worried all day, or your physical condition, prevented it. Instead, you just felt numb.

"Justin," you said his name softly, loathe to break into his avid attention.

His head snapped around, pinning you to the bed with his fiery gaze, and a feral look crossed his face.

"What?" he snarled, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

"Is there a cure?" Your heart was thudding heavily in your chest again and you waited for him to pounce on you, rip into your flesh with his teeth.

"A cure?" he yelled, suddenly and inexplicably angry, "A fucking cure? What, do you think I have a cold or something, Brian?"

He stalked towards you so swiftly that he was sitting on your chest, pressing your wrists to the mattress in his hellishly strong grip, before you could take your next breath.

"Justin," you struggled, looking up at him, letting him see your fear, "don't-"

A hard spasm gripped his body, causing him to quake above you. You held your breath, the certainty of your death filling you again. He closed his eyes, his teeth grinding together, and went rigid. Unmoving, both of you frozen in that moment, you waited.

One minute passed and still he didn't move. Two and then three, and then three more ticked by. Your dread was rampant in you, but somehow you sensed that he was trying to master himself, trying to stop the onslaught of emotions boiling in him and threatening to overtake him.

Finally, his grip on your wrists loosened and his head dropped limply. He looked exhausted, as if his fight had been a physical one.

"Justin?" Your throat was parched again, your voice choked.

He opened his eyes and you saw the intensity in them lessen as he relaxed more and more. He leaned in, his fingers massaging the places on your wrists where he'd bruised you, and pressed a soft kiss to your lips. Then he was off the bed again before you could respond in kind.

"I'm sorry, Brian, I'm sorry I scared you. I have to leave." He was already moving out into the living room.

"Justin!" You sat up, saw him stop without turning towards you, his back straight and stiff.

"I have to feed, Brian. Let me go," he warned.

That silenced you and you watched him move, wraith-like, out of your view. You didn't hear the telltale screeching of the loft door opening, but after a moment, you sensed that you were alone again, that he'd gone.

You began to shudder, your lips pressed tightly together, your muscles clenching hard to keep you from blowing apart.


	4. The Night Walks With Us

The next week passed in a haze of fevers and chills, and Justin didn't return. You dragged yourself through the days, moving carefully around the loft only when you had to. Nightmares began taking over your sleeping hours, much as they had your waking ones. In them, you were helpless to stop the atrocity befalling your partner, or unable to run from it when it finally descended upon you. You waited for the change to take place in you, as it had in Justin, but you still seemed to be holding on, by a mere thread, to who and what you were. 

When the bodies began turning up all around Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas, you knew without reading any of the details that the corpses had all been drained of blood. He was hunting his home territory and, by the looks of it, not taking many precautions in doing so- all the victims had been found in very public places, sometimes two and three at a time. Even still, police were said to be baffled, left with no leads. The usual signatures of any murderer- hair follicles, textile fragments, blood trails- were all missing, here. The killer was able to commit his crimes in total anonymity, something that would have made even a half-assed forensic investigator scratch his head in bewilderment.

It didn't take long for an intrepid reporter to draw the connection amongst the victims. All were known or suspected criminals of the worst kind. Most had been, at one time or another, arrested for and even convicted of murder, themselves. There were high profile drug dealers, cold-blooded gang members, known sex offenders, one very elusive mob boss and, in a story that made national headlines, a second serial killer, found dead near a hand written list of his own victims, the dates of their murders, their names, cities of abduction- a goldmine of cases going back almost 15 years.

The press began to call Justin The Vigilante, and in bars and coffee shops around the city, he was being praised in hushed whispers for "cleaning up the streets." You saw no particular nobility in what was happening, but the predatory businessman in you understood. Justin needed to feed in order to survive. That, apparently, meant he had to kill. He was compromising by culling the city of its worst element, and in doing so, fulfilling his own mandate.

When you read one afternoon that Chris Hobbes was found dead, his body drained of blood and with a trace of semen on his lips, you had to fight to keep down your recently consumed lunch.

Your own physical condition continued to deteriorate, each day leaving you weaker and feeling more ill than the day before. Sleep, when it came, was a miasma of tormented images of blood and destruction. Justin's face took on a starring role in your dreams, sometimes giving you heartbreaking glimpses of the fresh, young, healthy teen you'd once known, but more often than not, it was the pale, drawn, hardened Justin you saw. 

You became crazily convinced that he was somehow directing your dreams, and your belief was proved when, one night before turning out the light, you pleaded in your heart for him to send you perfect images of the two of you, locked together, fucking. You woke several hours later with a raging hard on, your heart beating triple-time, memories of the taste of his skin freshly implanted in your mind. You reached your hand between your legs and brought yourself off quickly, his name a breath on your lips. You fell asleep again knowing that, in the last second before drifting off, it was his voice you heard nearby, whispering that he loved you.

You began to drop weight at an alarming rate, and showering and shaving, both having previously been sacred rituals in your life, became a crap shoot. 

Cynthia, Mikey and Ted made regular appearances at your door bearing food you couldn't eat and work you couldn't concentrate on, clucking their tongues worriedly at your declining state. You sent them away with irritated growls intended to keep them from revisiting, but they were unfazed by your attempts, and determined to nurse you back to health.

In less than three weeks, Justin's absence became a serious concern to those who loved him most. Jennifer was the first to call you, trying hard to keep her voice light and make excuses that would let her sleep at night for why he might have suddenly fallen so silent. You agreed with all of her reasoning- yes, artists kept strange hours; absolutely, they could get carried away in projects and lose track of time and family; certainly, he was a young man in the big city and was no doubt taking full advantage of his surroundings- anything that would keep her looking in other directions for her son.

Hurricane Debbie was next, blowing into your loft with a casserole and a demand that you go to New York and search for him. Seeing your condition, however, she relented, admonishing you to take better care of yourself. She patted and cooed, attributing your pale complexion and the dark circles under your eyes to concern over his disappearance, and you didn't correct her when she kissed your forehead gently and told you not to worry, that he would turn up sooner or later. You smiled tiredly to her and nodded.

Linds began to call everyday, and Mikey took to making unannounced visits nearly once a day. Their worried frowns and soft words of compassion only added to the burden of your grief. 

Eventually, after almost a full month with no word from Justin, the police were brought in. Authorities in New York were contacted, and while they said all the right things, the general consensus in the family was that they simply didn't care. Justin was of legal adult age and New York City had its share of missing persons- they were too focused on policing the streets and catching killers to expend valuable manpower hours and tax dollars looking for one gay kid who had probably taken up with a sugar daddy in Vegas and blown town. Carl did his best to light fires under them, but the simple fact was, it was a huge city and Justin was merely one face in it. 

You were questioned by some well-intentioned but harried detectives, and while you could discern no note of homophobia in their attitudes, you had little doubt that back home in their precinct, no one was going out of their way to find Justin.

Only you knew that if Justin didn't want to be found, he had the ability to remain a missing person forever.

Despite your continuing illness and your infirmed state, you finally began to take on some work again, though Cynthia and Ted were still handling the lion's share of it. Talk began to circulate that your cancer was back, and you fielded almost constant stares, whispers and outright inquiries from your adopted family and employees. No amount of assurances would convince them, and you began to feel the consequence of being a close-mouthed bastard all those years- no one trusted you to tell them the truth. 

Your nights became long, painful waiting games. You ached to see Justin again, and to know what was happening to him. You often found yourself pacing weakly back and forth across the dimmed loft, immersed in memories of Justin as a vital, breathtakingly beautiful man. You even began to speak out loud to him in the hopes that he would be listening, somehow, and you detailed the search efforts, begged him to appear, or just whispered into the still air that you loved him.

By month 5 of Justin's disappearance, it became clear to you that some of your little family was already letting go of him, that they probably even believed he was dead, the victim, perhaps, of random violence. Mikey tried in vain to convince you that maybe it was time for you to let go, as well, but you sent him away with kisses to the forehead and assurances that you were fine. It was getting harder to dodge his questions about your failing health, and creases of worry began to deepen on his forehead. You lied to him repeatedly, telling him that you'd been to your oncologist and numerous doctors and had been told only that you had a rare strain of mono that would clear up in time.

Jennifer visited often, and she was the only one you never tried to send scurrying away. She was pale and drawn, and had clearly lost weight. Her physical condition began to mirror yours, and you wondered how many nights she, too, had paced, and how many combined miles you had both clocked in the last five months. 

You didn't expect to love her the way you did, but despite the fact that you and Justin had never officially tired the knot, you still thought of her as your mother-in-law. Your heart broke to see the ashen panic under her fading calm, and lying to her was harder than lying to any of the others. You were sure, day after day, that she would see right through you, burst in on you, and demand to know everything _you_ knew about Justin's disappearance.

You never believed it was possible to be so exhausted and so filled with sorrow. Justin may have been the immortal, but you were becoming a ghost in your own life.

****

*~O~*

He returned to you on a warm night in the middle of summer. You'd been standing by an open window in the living room, smoking and gazing out at the darkening sky, when you sensed his presence behind you. For the first time in many months, you felt yourself relax marginally, your breath coming easier in your chest.

"Half the state of Pennsylvania and most of New York is combing the streets, looking for you," you informed him without turning.

"Bullshit," he replied, and all you could do was nod your head in agreement.

You heard his soft laugh moments before his hand landed on your shoulder, urging you to look at him. You resisted for a second more, afraid of what you might see, but your need to wrap yourself up in him was too great, and you rounded on him, hiding the relief and hurt churning inside you.

He hadn't changed in the least. His hair was the same length, his skin the same smooth, bloodless white, his eyes still filled with color and movement. You let out the breath you'd been holding, sagging a little towards him, and when his arms wound tightly around you, you pulled him to you, pressing yourself into his hard, cold body. 

"Where the fuck have you been," you murmured into his hair. You stroked his back and neck, learning all of his new textures, needing to understand this Justin, needing to find something of the man you loved in him. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and he sounded as desperate to be near you as you were to crawl inside of him. "I had to be sure I could control myself, I had to learn how so I wouldn't hurt you, because I want-"

He stiffened in your arms but you pulled him closer, showing him with your body that you were ready to hear anything he had to tell you, now.

"Tell me what you want." Your lips, as if by muscle memory, found his neck, traced the hard new lines there, making him arch into you. "Tell me, Justin, what do you want?"

Your voice was seductive, needy, and he responded to it as he always had, with long, ardent kisses and your name repeated until it sounded like a prayer. 

"Tell me," you urged again. 

He began rutting against your thigh, his cock rigid and demanding, and you were morbidly drawn to know what it looked like, how it tasted, now that this thing had been done to him. 

"Brian." 

His hands were everywhere, moving so quickly from your hair, to your chest, to your back, that it felt like being caught in a whirlwind. You moaned into his mouth, wondering vaguely if you had ever wanted him as much as you did right now, and when he began nipping at your skin, raising small beads of blood that he licked away with the rough lapping of his tongue, you thought you might come before ever sinking your dick into him.

You clothes were shredded like tissue paper by his powerful fingers and for the first time in your relationship, you felt truly outmatched by him. You fought him for dominance, stripping him, in turn, your struggles bringing you closer and closer to the orgasm you'd been waiting to unleash since the night he'd left you, feverish and needing. When he knocked you to the floor with a growl that was only partly human, covering your body with his, you rolled him over, showing him that you would not be subdued by what he'd become. 

He bucked into you, peppering your chest, arms and neck with bloody kisses, grunting with hunger. Your fingers finally found his hair, yanking hard on it to expose his neck. Your bites lacked the finesse of his and breaking the skin of his porcelain, hardened flesh was out of the question, but he cried out in pain that was really pleasure, nonetheless. 

"Tell me!" you demanded into his ear.

"I can't!" 

You took a hard bite out of his earlobe, causing him to writhe beneath you.

"Tell me, Justin!"

"I want-"

More bites down his neck, while your skin was dotted with small punctures that burned, and oozed precious fluid.

"What?"

"I want to-"

You pulled back, glaring down at him. You would slam his head into the floor until he told you, if you had to, ignoring the danger of his unearthly strength and unpredictable behavior. You had to make him say it, because you were too afraid to ask for it, yourself.

"I want to take you with me!" His face crumbled into a sob. "I want you with me, I'm so lonely, but it's so wrong, Brian, it's so wrong to want to make you what I am, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Terror and relief shot through you like bullets, tearing you apart, making you whole, and he watched in awe as you wiped his bloody tears away, licking your fingers after catching each one.

You leaned in to kiss him, all your ferociousness drained out of you by the sight of his misery and an overwhelming need to comfort him. Your exploration of his mouth, all sharp teeth and soft, cool lips, was slow, languid, and as you felt his body gradually relax under yours, you stretched out on top of him, both of you falling into the comfortable way you fit one another, even now.

As his grief subsided, his sexual appetite returned, building in him like a flame turned higher and higher. Your response was instinctive, surprising you with its power. You didn't understand how you could still want him, knowing what he was, what he'd done, how chillingly dangerous he was to you, but you realized that he'd always had this power over you. Giving in to it was simply accepting the inevitable.

You peeled yourself away from him, standing and holding out your hand to him. He smiled when he took it, lifting himself off the floor with a flicker of movement, and followed you to the bedroom. Like a panther, menace and silk embodied, he stretched across your bed, digging his fingers into the deep weight of the comforter, grinning at the pure sensual pleasure of spreading himself out for you, once again.

His glimmering eyes danced between your cock, standing straight out from your pelvis, and your face. You recognized the love and hopefulness of his previous self even through the oddly stilled expression of this Justin. It was enough for you. You'd take him as he was, the way you had always done, and yes, it would be enough.

Reading your thoughts effortlessly, his smile widened and he nodded, understanding that he still belonged to you. He spread his legs, giving you a show like he used to do, and you moved slowly towards the bed, watching, appreciating. His palms stroked up the insides of his thighs as his knees fell open, and one white hand slipped under his balls, rolling them between his fingers. His lips parted in pleasure, his tongue darting out to moisten them. 

Hollywood had one thing wrong. They had always portrayed these creatures as sensual but sexless, but Justin's wanton display put paid to that idea. 

You climbed between his legs, watching his face, his hypnotic eyes, your gaze dropping to the progress of his hand. He pushed his hips forward and took his cock in his fist, stroking up and down its length. You were right, it _did_ look different. No longer the deep red that had once indicated his heavy urgency, it was nonetheless still rigid, smooth, impressive. 

You dipped down and took the head in your mouth, sucking softly. His legs twitched and a moan escaped him, his hand steadily jacking. The texture was almost that of the rest of his skin- smooth, poreless, slick and shiny. Something inside you cramped hard in need and you shoved his hand away, swallowing him to the root. His back arched, and though you knew he could overpower you with little more than a thought, you gripped his hips, pressing him into the mattress, warning him with your gouging fingers to stay still.

His hand clutched at the back of your head and somehow, the knowledge that he could snap your neck with a single twist settled in your dick, making it weep more for him. 

You worked him hard, spurred on by his steadily increasing moans and gasps and the twisting of his hips as he tried not to fuck your mouth, until you knew from long experience that he was close, almost too close to stop, and then you pulled off. 

His grip on your head tightened painfully, fingers digging into your scalp, and the thrill you felt at the risk you were taking made sweat break out along your back and forehead.

"Brian, fuck, don't you stop!" That uneven, grating tone had returned to his voice, causing you to wonder briefly why you were courting such danger, but you refused to continue, a predatory grin stretching your face.

He finally leaned up, looking at you, his eyes flashing threateningly, but when he saw your smile, the part of him that loved you desperately surfaced and he began laughing, calling you a motherfucker and a bastard under his breath. 

You crawled up the length of his pale body, licking and kissing as you went, his hands roaming your back and threading through your hair, until you reached his deadly mouth. He kissed you breathless, then, and for the first time, you actually _felt_ him inside your mind, caressing your fears, igniting your love, soothing the long months of worry and pain. The impact of his thoughts joining with yours sent you into something like a swoon and when he spoke, your entire body shuddered with longing.

"You can be inside me without a condom, now, Brian. There's no disease I can give you or get, anymore. I've found the perfect immunity." 

You couldn't even be sure if the words came out of his mouth or simply appeared in your head, but it didn't matter. You had his legs over your shoulders and your dick at his hole within seconds. He nodded sharply to you, an almost violent movement for him, and you shoved once, hard, burying yourself to the hilt in a way you never had when he'd been human.

"Jus-" 

Your heart stuttered, and for a moment you wondered if it would stop beating altogether. He was icy cold inside, but as hot as an incinerator, too. The sensation short-circuited your faculties for long minutes, and you held your position, barely breathing, your eyes squeezed shut against the intensity.

His patience sustained you both. When you believed that you were in control once more, you opened your eyes to look at him. Blood-tinged sweat had broken out across his forehead and adoration marked every line of his face. At another nod from him, you began to move.

Every long, deep thrust was excruciating and threatened to shatter you into a million tiny pieces. It seemed to go on forever, him inside your head even as you were buried in his ass. You felt your awareness stretch and expand in what could have only been the way _he_ saw the world around him, the two of you merging as you never could have, before. Finally, when he contracted his muscles, squeezing down on you, once and then once more, you climaxed explosively, feeling, for the first time in your life, what it really meant to coat him inside.

His own orgasm, on the heels of yours, was almost painful to you, his ass clenching on your softening cock hard enough to make you groan out loud. His body bowed into yours, nearly knocking you off him, and you held onto him, trying to ground him until he finished.

When it was over, you collapsed onto him in an boneless heap, his hand stroking your face.

"Ok, Justin, I'm ready to go with you. Make me what you are."


	5. The Night Walks With Us

** The Night Walks With Us **

 

You felt his body stiffen and his hand, tangled in the fine strands of your hair, stopped mid-stroke.

"Under no circumstances." His voice was icy.

You raised your head and gazed at him steadily. 

"I'm not asking. I'm telling you. Take me with you."

His eyes flashed dangerously and he tumbled you off him so swiftly that you had to catch the edge of the platform to keep from crashing to the floor.

"Fuck. You," he ground out. "It's not for you to demand. And I refuse. I'm not your teenaged twink anymore, Brian, you can't just order me around and expect me to fall over myself to please you."

You got angry, suddenly.

"No, Justin," you shouted, "fuck _you_! You're the one who made me the way I am right now. You're the one who made me drink your blood, and my life has been shit ever since. Fuck _you,_ Justin, for thinking that you could play with me and fuck me up and then not take responsibility for my condition."

He seemed shocked, even chagrined, but you rushed on before he could respond.

"Did you think you could turn me into your little toy, Justin?" Your fury was building and you didn't care anymore if expressing it meant your death at his hands. Anything had to be better than the hell on earth you'd been living through every day. "Did you think that because some asshole freak stole your life that it was okay to steal _mine_ and then leave me here to waste away?"

He was shaking his head in negation, now, afraid to defend himself and afraid not to.

" _LOOK_ at me, Justin," you roared, indicating your sickly complexion and the ribs clearly showing in your chest. "Look at the circles under my eyes! Do you know why I have them? It's not from pining away for you, blond boy, not by a long fucking shot. I can't sleep anymore because you fucking _poisoned_ me and now all I have when I close my eyes are nightmares."

You were apoplectic. You placed your hands into the middle of his chest and shoved him as hard as you could, ignoring the fact that it had no effect on him. It felt good to _you_ to do it, to finally fight back against this disease he had given you.

" _You_ did this to me, Justin. No one else. You! And now you have to do something to make it stop! Take it away, kill me, or finish the job, but don't you dare fucking leave me in this condition for even another day!" 

"Brian," he was stunned, horrified, his eyes wide, his face set in a grimace. "I can't. I won't. You don't know what you're asking, what it's like."

You shoved him again.

"Then _tell_ me, motherfucker!" you yelled into his face, making him recoil.

He moved off the bed slowly, like a restless spirit, and began pacing back and forth in front of you as you sat on the edge of the platform. He was silent for long minutes, considering his words carefully.

"You know I've killed." He started softly, glancing at you to see your reaction. You merely nodded. You knew.

"You _don't_ know, Brian! You can't even begin to understand what it does to me, how much I hate it."

"I want to," you answered, longing for him to believe you, and as repulsed as you were to hear his words, you leaned forward towards him. He studied you and then nodded, satisfied.

"It's how I survive," his eyes took on a detached veil, as if separating himself from his actions was the only way he could deal with what he'd become. "I have to feed. When the hunger takes over- and it's _always_ there, Brian, it never truly goes away- when it takes over, I barely know who I am. I don't feel human anymore. In fact, I'm sure I'm _not_ human. My mind is clouded with this horrible need that I can't control."

You nod. You'd seen some evidence of that state of mind in him, not once, but twice. It was horrific to witness- you could only guess what it must be like to live through.

"So I hit the streets and I search. And when I find the right one, I take him. Or her."

"Criminals," you supplied. "Always the bad guys." 

"Yes." 

"How do you find them? How do you always know where they are?"

"I _read_ them, the same way I do you. I see their crimes, the way they devalue life, if they consider it at all. They're easier to take."

"Even now, you can't hurt an innocent, can you?"

His eyes sharpened on you.

"Could you?"

"If it meant I lived another day, maybe." But you weren't sure. Before you'd met him, there would have been little moral uncertainty in the act- you would have done what was required to keep going one more night- and then hated yourself for it, later. But you would have done it. And then he came into your life and changed so much about it. Your moral code was almost completely intact from your pre-Justin days, but it had been refined and, even to a large extent, had matured. And the influence was nearly all his. "Then again, maybe not."

He nodded.

"Right. So I do this bloody, terrible thing," he said quietly, pain reflected in his voice, "and I live another day and I die inside a little more. And as awful as that is, it's not nearly the worst."

You felt a shiver touch you. What could be worse? He smiled sadly, not needing telepathy to read the expression of disbelief on your face.

"There are Others, Brian. They're hunting me."

You went cold.

"Others? Hunting?"

He stood absolutely still, only his eyes showing any signs of life as they traced the lines of your face, settling finally on the frown you wore.

"The one who made me was very strong, very old." He shifted marginally and turned his face away from yours, looking out into the darkened loft. "He was one of the first. He'd never made another vampire, before me."

He'd finally said the word, and you nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of it, except that here he was, pale, deadly, ferociously strong, with an unpredictable temperament and an uncanny ability to read your mind. _Vampire._ You rolled the word in your mind, letting it fill all the spaces of all your uncertainties. He went silent, watching you, waiting for you to absorb his revelations, and didn't continue his story until you looked back at him and nodded shortly.

"He was undiluted, see?" 

You shook your head, not understanding.

"He'd gotten stronger and stronger as the millennia passed. His powers were unimaginableï¿½ I think I must have just a fraction of what he had. When he made me, because he'd never done it before, his blood was undiluted. He passed his power on to me, or as much as he could. I'm stronger than all the others now, just as he was stronger than they are. So they hate me, fear me, although I don't mean them any harm. They want me dead because they know I can destroy them with a thought. They hunt me nightly. It's taken me almost this long to learn how to hide myself from them, and now I have to hide you from them, too, or they'll come for you. They'll use you against me, to draw me out."

You were appalled for him.

"I would never allow that, Justin. I'd let them kill me," you declared boldly, but your throat tightened and you couldn't contemplate the things they could do to you to force Justin to reveal himself. 

"They wouldn't make it that easy for you."

You blanched, feeling the truth of his words.

"All the more reason to take me with you, Justin. Make me strong, like you. We'll fight the motherfuckers together."

He smiled at this and you suddenly knew without being told that he'd considered the possibility, himself, many times.

"Of course I have," he confirmed, "but it's a poor fucking reason for me to do such a terrible thing to you. I _love_ you, Brian, even now. In fact, I guess I love you more now than I ever have. There's never been a time when I didn't know I could come back to you and be taken in by you- until now. It's the loneliest feeling in the world."

You stood, finally, drawn to him by the vulnerability in him, as you'd always been. He was stronger than you could ever imagine being, he could snap you in two and end your life without the slightest effort. And yet he was still Justin. Still hardly out of adolescence, afraid, lonely. You ached for him.

But there was more. A part of you began to crave his power, just a little bit. To be young forever, beautiful, invulnerable, deadly. You were unquestionably drawn to the notion, and to be able to spend it with him was incredibly appealing. Eternity. You could barely encompass it.

"What other powers, Justin?"

He grinned, then, understanding what motivated you better than anyone could.

"I should have known you'd like the sound of that." 

You shrugged your shoulders, neither admitting nor denying it. 

"Well," he said, "you've probably noticed the way I move?"

You nodded. "You're fast, so fast I can't see you, sometimes. But languid, also, like you're moving through molasses."

"Right," he responded, but now he was across the room, making you crane your neck to locate him. 

"How-" your mouth had gone dry and you cleared your throat, covering your shock. "How do you do that?"

"No differently than you do, but for some reason, I can just do it a lot faster. And silently."

It would certainly make it easy to advance on his victims, unawares.

"Yeah, it does. They never see me coming."

You swallowed hard.

"What else, Justin?"

"You remember the first night I came to you?"

You remembered, all right. "I woke up confused. I thought I had gone home with some rich twink."

 

"You did, sort of," he laughed. "I told you we were at the home of my benefactor. Well, it's my home now, I suppose, since he's gone. Do you remember?"

"Yeah," you answered, the strangeness of that night creeping over you again. "Where the fuck was that? It was warm, wasn't it? And I heard _waves_!"

"It's this big sprawling place on the beach of the Emerald Coast."

" _Florida?_ " You were nonplussed. "We were in fucking _Florida_?"

He nodded his head, smiling happily, like a kid showing off his new bike.

"I flew you there."

"Huh?"

"Yeah," he was still grinning, and despite the razor-sharp points he revealed, it was a contagious smile. 

"What, vampirism comes with its own pilot's license?" 

He laughed again.

"No, Brian. It's so fucking cool, you wouldn't believe it. It's like superhero shit, Michael would _love_ it!"

"Do you get to wear tights that show off your package?" You arched your eyebrow and cupped his dick. You couldn't believe how good it felt to just be bantering with him, again, or how much you'd missed it.

He pressed himself into your hand, shaking his head at you, his golden hair flopping into his eyes and reminding you of the kid he'd once been.

"It's not like that," he slipped his arms around your neck, pulling you closer. "It's likeï¿½ I don't know how to describe it, exactly. It's like blinking. I think of a place I want to be, and I move in that direction and then within seconds or minutes, I'm there. It's this rushing, sorta cold feeling, but it's really cool!" He could have been describing a new painting technique he'd just discovered, for the glee you saw written in his eyes.

"I'd like to try it, myself," you murmured.

You touched his face, tilting his chin upwards with the gentle pressure of your thumb. You let him look into you, knowing that he was reading your thoughts, and you opened yourself to him in a way you'd only been able to do back when you'd proposed to him, and during the days afterwards while you'd planned your futures together. You let him see your need for him, your protective impulse to help him, save him. You let him feel your desire to be what he was and you didn't hide from the truth of it, the avarice. You let him see the ugliness of that, and the purity of your craving to be with him, again. You let him see your love.

For a moment, you thought you'd won. His face changed, became so excruciatingly _Justin,_ and you knew that he wanted to take you, in that moment, and turn you. You stepped closer to him, ready to bare your neck, wrapping your arms around his slim waist.

He settled his head in the crook of your neck, sinking comfortably into you. You held him tightly, trying to show him that without a doubt you weren't afraid anymore. You felt him breath heavily, perhaps taking in your scent, though his exhale never reached your flesh.

His nose brushed your jaw, nuzzling, and then he pressed his lips to the pulse in your neck in a chaste kiss. You shivered when his tongue slid over your skin, and you waited to feel the stinging bite. His mouth opened wide, and he sucked blood to the surface of your skin painfully, his teeth sharp, but not breaking the flesh. You closed your eyes, wondering if becoming what he was would hurt. Your dick was rigid against his hard stomach.

Suddenly, your arms were empty. You blinked, and stumbled forward, opening your eyes.

He was standing across the room from you, glaring at you resentfully.

"No, I won't be seduced into doing this, Brian," he breathed. "I won't do it."

Then he was gone, as if he'd vanished into air.

****

*~O~*

You spent weeks searching for him. Every night, you'd prowl the streets, imagining him watching you from a rooftop, or slipping around a corner into the shadows, just ahead of you. You read every newspaper account of his crimes, studying them closely for any detail that might lead you to him. Sleeping became a luxury and eating a nuisance. More weight dropped off of you, and your usual carefully honed and polished appearance became meaningless to you. Your clothes draped on you and your hair became longer, hanging into your eyes, covering a creeping madness that you feared was taking you over.

You were sick of being sick. That thought played over and over in your mind, sick of being sick, sick of being sick. Cancer would almost have been better than this constant malaise, the never ending nausea, the thumping in your head that drove you insane with the need for relief, even for one full minute. You had become more and more sensitive to light, and you found it ironic that an old club boy like yourself, a creature of darkened back rooms and nights filled with drugs and sex, would begin to crave the daylight while hating it, too. Your skin felt stiff and old, having lost its former elasticity. You knew you were caught in a abyss somewhere between Justin's world and yours, never able to be part of one or the other.

You stopped working, barking over the phone at Ted and Cynthia to handle things for you, not really caring if they did. During the daylight hours, you paced the loft, railing aloud against him, pleading for him to return, cursing having ever met him, shouting vehemently that you'd never loved him and then feeling crushing guilt because nothing was further from the truth.

You stopped answering your cell or the door and, with shouts and thrown objects, sent running anyone who breeched your home. Michael, Ted, Lindsay, Cynthia, Debbie, all left pleading messages on your voice mail, your answering machine and in your email box, begging you to seek help, call a family member, see a doctor.

You deleted all of them, unanswered.

Every day you fashioned plans for finding Justin, and every night you implemented them. You ignored each failure and moved on, shambling through your life, minute by minute, day by day.

The blood he had infected you with made the erosion of the strong, healthy person you'd been into the raving thing you'd become, almost too easy. You refused to think of your past and the kind of man you'd been, because doing so filled you with loathing for what you were, now. You despised Justin as much as you adored him.

Slowly, very slowly as the months dragged by, a plan began to forming your mind, taking hold of your thoughts in a vicegrip. You began to understand what you'd need to do to force him to take you, to turn you. You were terrified by the possibility that he would merely ignore this gambit as he had all the others, but were willing to take any risk.

Very quietly, you began to put your affairs in order. You saw to the legalities of your businesses, your personal fortune, your home. You filed reams of paperwork through highly skilled lawyers, setting up trusts and anonymous high-yield accounts with venerable banking agencies, assuring your future wealth. You provided for Gus, his mothers and your extended family, knowing that if Justin came to take you, you could never see any of them again.

Finally, when everything was in place, you prepared yourself, quietly, with dignity. You behaved as if you were going out clubbing, taking great care to look your best. You took a long, hot shower, remember the hours spent in the small enclosure with Justin's wet body pressed against yours, kissing and touching and fucking. You gave yourself a methodical, close shave, trimmed your hair and nails, slapped Justin's favorite cologne across your hollowed, gray cheeks.

Your clubbing clothes nearly fell off you now, your thin frame hardly able to hold them up, but you dressed carefully, choosing all of his favorites. A black wife beater, faded jeans with the top button undone, no shoes, a simple but elegant watch. You looked at your reflection in the mirror, ruffling your fingers through your hair, and nodded, satisfied.

You pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels down from a kitchen cupboard, broke the seal, and tipped it to your lips, grimacing at the burn sliding down your throat. A slow, lazy walk through the dimmed loft showed you that everything was in place, so you stepped up into the bedroom and moved to the bathroom, some of the grace of your better days returning. 

You took the razor from it's little metal case in the medicine cabinet and studied its evil glint a long time before crouching down to sit on the cold, tile floor. Leaning against the wall, you spent the next thirty minutes draining half the bottle of Jack, memories of you and him crowding your mind, creating a warm, sexy buzz in your limbs, your groin, your head.

When you were certain you were ready, you held your right arm out and sharply drew the blade of the razor upwards, clenching your jaw against the sting as it bit deeply into your flesh. You cut yourself from wrist to elbow, and then quickly turned the razor and cut your other arm in the same fashion.

The blood flowed freely, soaking into your jeans, darkening them with spreading stains, and within just a few minutes, your sight began to dim.

Holding the love you felt for him close as you began to die, you whispered to him one more time.

"Justin, _hurry._ "

You were barely aware of his answer, moments later, when he strode into the bathroom and glared down at your lifeless body.

"You fucking asshole," he said, simply.

You were unconscious when he lifted you, your head rolling limply off his shoulder.

****

*~O~*

**Epilogue**

_18 months later..._

You'd been tracking their movements for weeks. This particular cell was rabidly circumspect and far too clever in covering their tracks for local and federal authorities to catch, but of course, they couldn't hope to escape you and Justin. You were almost ready to make your move on them; tonight they'd meet Allah and collect their virgins.

It had been Justin's idea to move on from the individual criminals to the larger terror cells and organized crime families. You'd given the New Jersey mob a run for their money, enjoying their attempts to find you and deal out their own brand of due process. The French mafia had been even more amusing, although Justin rarely found pleasure in his work. He was still all about justice, and you fucking loved him for it, even now. 

You had finally made an uneasy truce with the Others but it had taken months and was messy as fuck. One night, you'd almost been killed by them, but Justin, badly injured and bleeding from multiple wounds, had dragged you out of harms way, batting aside several young ones, their bones snapping sickeningly. Together, as the sun began to rise, you'd fled them, but running had usually been _their_ last resort. 

For so many years, you were Justin's hero. More and more, though, he was becoming yours.

You watched him now, crouched next to you on the rooftop, staring steadily into the window of the building across the alley. His luminous skin, glowing softly, seemed to breathe of its own accord, your sharpened senses now detecting minute changes in him that your human eyes had never seen. He looked like an archangel- arrogant, deadly and magnificent, almost too beautiful to comprehend. You had never loved him more.

You made quite a pair. It wasn't vanity to admit that you were equally as beautiful as he. The long months of privation and lack of care had vanished when he'd turned you, giving you a solid, powerful body, filling in the weight you'd lost that had made of you little more than a walking skeleton. Your eyes, which he seemed almost unable to stop gazing into, flickered and shone with browns, golds and greens to rival any artist's palette. You turned out to be an efficient and ruthless killer, as anyone who'd come against you in the ad world could have predicted.

You swung your attention back to your task, to those who were just settling in for a long discussion of murder and revenge across the alley. Tonight, for the first time since you'd begun following this particular group, there were more than ten of them gathered together at once. Previously, they'd never met in groups larger than two, so you had bided your time, knowing that as their deadline approached, they'd come together for one last planning and prayer meeting. 

On their agenda tonight was the destruction of the House Of Parliament, The London Stock Exchange and The Bank Of England. They would never make their appointments. Their bodies, and all the evidence you could gather implicating them and their compadres, would be found on the steps of Scotland Yard- your gift to the British people.

Slipping your hand silently to his shoulder, drawing his attention, you felt a wash of excitement when he smiled at you. You leaned in, your movements spare and elegant, and kissed his cold lips softly. When you drew away from him, you used the easy telepathy between you to let him know how much you wanted him, planting wicked images in his mind of your sharp, dangerous teeth scraping along his formidable cock. His chuckled response was enough of an answer for you- he wanted you, too, but that would have to wait; there was work to do.

"Ready, JT?" 

"Ready, Rage." He grinned at the joke.

"Then let's do this thing. I'd like to be buried in your tight little ass before midnight." 

He nodded once, all business now, and together you stepped off the edge of the roof, your lithe bodies disappearing into the shadows until you had become them.


End file.
